Demystify Tribune’s Book Reviews — Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi | #4

Thomas Lin, April 25th, 2023

“Ask yourself whether you are happy and you would cease to be so,” wrote John Stuwart Mill nearly 300 years ago. What this observation implied was that happiness was not a moment to be captured while you are living in it, but rather an experience meant to be looked back at when you have lived it. It also suggests that happiness is not something that can be aimed for like a bow and arrow — similar to success, “For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue…”.

The latter quote was in the introduction section of Flow, authored by Hungarian-American Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, who dedicated his career to positive psychology and the study of happiness. His thirty-year long career was summarized in one book, which took readers on an exploration of a concept as abstract as any concept could get — happiness, through an idea called flow.

Flow is a non-fiction book which presents Csikszentmihalyi’s qualitative research findings through the exclusive use of interviews of ordinary people across the world, detailing their experiences surrounding the idea of flow. Documenting the lives of chess players, rock climbers, musicians, surgeons, etc and their experiences with concentration, balance between skill and challenge, musical inspiration, as well as dedication and precision. Yet, his research was not only limited to “professionals” but also ordinary people, assembly-line workers from Southern America, to teenagers in Thailand, farmers in the Alps, and Japanese motorcycle gangs. He also investigated novels and folk stories from the East and West and their descriptions on flow-like experiences, as the concept of flow was documented over thousands of years across cultures under various names. Csikszentmihalyi synthesized what was in common between the diverse experiences in the world — their collective experiences of flow when conducting their respective tasks.

Csikszentmihalyi identified flow as “a state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter; the experience is so enjoyable that people will continue to do it even at great cost, for the sheer sake of doing it”. He argued that during flow, the mind and body experience extreme concentration on the activity, which later translates into happiness and satisfaction during and after the activity. Through his first-hand interviews, an abstract idea was broken down into tangible difficulty where the reader can relate their personal flow experiences to the experiences of Csikszentmihalyi’s subjects.

To better understand the concept of flow, it is useful to examine what is the opposite feeling which is known as “Disorder in Consciousness” and Csikszentmihalyi called this “Psychic Entropy”. At a factory that produces audiovisual equipment in the United States, Julio Martinez was a subject of Csikszentmihalyi’s, and he described Julio’s experience as follows.

“As the movie projectors pass in front of him on the assembly line, he is distracted and can hardly keep up the rhythm of moves necessary for soldering the connections that are his responsibility. Usually he can do his part of the job with time to spare and then relax for a while to exchange a few jokes…But today he is struggling, and occasionally he slows down the entire line. When the man at the next station kids him about it, Julio snaps back irritably…”

What was the cause for Julio’s psychic entropy? The problem was simple. Julio noticed his tires were too low one day on the way to work and haven’t been able to fix it as he is waiting for his next paycheque. That day was the third day of him driving to work and back on a low tire, however, by the time he got to the factory, the tires were so low that steering became difficult. Julio was distracted with thoughts like “How can I make it home tonight?” or “How can I get to work tomorrow morning?”. Those questions can very easily disrupt one’s flow within a task, especially doing a task such as working in a factory line where there is minimal technical challenge and perpetual repetitiveness.

Rico Medellin is an assembly line worker who just happens to work at the same factory as Julio and works down the assembly line. The task that he has to perform on each piece of equipment should take forty-three seconds, the same exact procedure would be done six hundred times in a day. Yet, Rico was able to make such a repetitive and boring task into a flow activity that Csikszentmihalyi described with the following.

Rico has been at this job for over five years, and he still enjoys it. The reason is that he approaches his task in the same way an Olympic [sprinter] approaches [their] event: How can I beat my record?…Rico has trained himself to better his time on the assembly line. With the painstaking care of a surgeon, he has worked out a private routine for how to use his tools…After five years, his best average for a day has been twenty-eight seconds per unit…[and] often he does not even let on to others that he is ahead and lets his success pass unnoticed. It is enough to know that he can do it, because when he is working at top performance the experience is so enthralling that it is almost painful for him to slow down. “It’s better than anything else,” Rico says.

Rico has a different perspective and approach to his supposedly boring job. He treated it like a game and made a simple task challenging by giving himself a goal — an expectation to do better. Furthermore, although he may be working the job to provide for himself and his family, the reason that he gives himself higher expectations such as aiming for a faster time is for himself. This is also why he is humble enough to let his success pass unnoticed. Even though he is contributing to the efficiency of the factory and could potentially earn a raise, he has made his work autotelic.

Autotelic work is one of the supporting concepts introduced by Csikszentmihalyi in Flow. The word is broken down from the Greek word “auto” which means “self”, and “telos” which means “end” or “goal”. Csikszentmihalyi defined autotelic work in Flow as “a self-contained activity, one that is done not with the expectation of some future benefit, but simply because the doing itself is the reward”. In the case of Rico, why did he feel the need to set a high expectation for himself when he could have done what the rest of the workers did and simply meet expectations? What he has achieved is difficult — Rico is self-contained within flow as he treats the task not as an investment for rewards in the future, but rather, enjoys the present moment of doing the task itself.

Finding flow, enjoyment and autotecality is not only difficult from ordinary and repetitive factory work, but it is just as arduous from repetitive and tiring chores. However, in the case of Serfina Vinon — a seventy-six-year-old woman who lives in a small village under the mountains of the Italian Alps — lives everyday with gratitude that spurts autotelic work. She wakes up at five in the morning to milk her cows, after which she cooks a huge breakfast for her grandchildren, cleans the house, does laundry…depending on the time of the year, she will need to tend the orchard, take the sheeps to the meadow, etc. Csikszentmihalyi said that, “Serafina knows every tree, every boulder, every feature of the mountains as if they were old friends”. When she was asked what she enjoys doing most in life, she repeated her daily routine again: milking the cows, pruning the orchard, carding wool. In Serafina’s own descriptions, “It gives me great satisfaction. To be outdoors, to talk with people, to be with my animals…Everything in nature keeps you company…you feel clean and happy; too bad that you get tired and have to go home…. even when you have to work a lot it is very beautiful.” When Serafina was asked later on what she would do if she had all the money in the world, she simply repeated the same activities. Csikszentmihalyi explained that it is not because of ignorance of urban life and modern technology that Serafina chose to live this way, rather she is simply “perfectly content and serene with the role she plays in the universe.”

This autotelic experience is powerful. The surgeons Csikszentmihalyi interviewed described their work as “It is so enjoyable that I would do it even if I didn’t have to.”, and sailors say, “I am spending a lot of money and time on this boat, but it is worth it — nothing quite compares with the feeling I get when I am out sailing”. Yet similar to flow, the autotelic experience is rare especially during a period of history where alienation is rampant. Understanding flow and the effect it has is rudimentary, but finding flow and maintaining it is a difficult achievement.

Csikszentmihalyi’s proposition for finding flow is that one needs to find a task requiring both a high amount of skill and challenge. For example, playing chess at a high level is an easy flow task. Chess is a game that requires incredibly high skill, and it is also challenging when one has an opponent of similar strength. Once this proposition is met, it allows the subject to experience more flow like symptoms, Csikszentmihalyi outlined eight clear characteristics of flow:

1. Complete concentration on the task
2. Clarity of goals and reward in mind and immediate feedback
3. Speeding-up or the slowing-down of time
4. The experience is intrinsically rewarding
5. Effortlessness and ease
6. A balance between challenge and skill
7. Actions and awareness are merged; losing self-conscious rumination
8. There is a feeling of control over the task

From this long list of characteristics of flow, one can tell the difficulty of achieving such a state of mind. In the case of a balance between challenge and skill, the individual must find an activity that is challenging yet not to the point of anxiety, and they need to be skilled enough in that activity but not to the point of boredom. Csikszentmihalyi helpfully introduced a chart through his studies that could guide an individual to identify a balance between challenge and skill within their tasks.

For example, in the case of a high school student studying a new concept for school. What brings productivity and efficiency is not how much time or effort the student spends on trying to learn and understand the topic. Rather, the question is if the student is interested in learning the topic and can they find interest to develop autotelic learning so the experience can be intrinsically rewarding? Is the concept challenging enough for them? If not, can they dig deeper into the concept to balance their skill level? If they find the concept too challenging, can they improve their skills and knowledge on the concept before approaching it or find an easier explanation? Finally, perhaps the most simple yet overlooked factor, how concentrated is the student? Finding flow does not have shortcuts and it is difficult to achieve at times. As a result, the characteristics of flow can act like a formula to flow, which allows us to be more familiar and closer to the flow experience.

In the process of reading this book, one can experience flow as well. For readers of any age, Csikszentmihalyi’s writing style is challenging but not to the point of indigestion for the common reader. The topic that is covered, although technical with immense psychological literature and data, Csikszentmihalyi made sure to break down the language for the average reader and their enjoyment. To do this, he used examples relevant to students, parents, scientists, athletes, the elderly, and the rest of humanity for guidance in their search for happiness through the experience of flow. Flow is not only a book of education into a deeply profound topic, but a majoirty of this book consists of anecdotes from subjects of diverse backgrounds, interpretations of ancient myths and stories, as well explanations for relgion, sex, consciousness, yoga and martial arts, and an adventure with the reader into stress, anixety and lonliness. Reading Flow has the potential for transformation within the reader, because it is a guide for a better understanding of ourselves.

Csikszentmihalyi famously stated that, “The best moments in our lives are not the passive, receptive, relaxing times . . . The best moments usually occur if a person’s body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile.” Essentially, that is the spirit of flow and this book. The concept of flow encourages work, dedication, concentration, and skill-acquisition, but it is done with poise, clarity and consciousness to achieve an accomplishment that is intrinsically rewarding. Through Flow and the knowledge you gain, happiness may eventually ensue.

Citations:

Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly. Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. Harper and Row, 2009.